Charles Parry wrote:
"IMHO that coach was drilling into them a two-person meme-like gestalt as
his distillation of successful habits & awareness in that context
(soccer). A good start if players come into it trained by their academic
classes to be focussed on individual achievement. But notice that he did
so using his authority (my inference from "The kids hate practices...")"
I don't understand the ideas here. Perhaps you could elaborate?
At the end of your contribution, you ask your "original question", "where
is the practice-field for team skills & orientations?" That's a very good
question, indeed. One simplistic response is that practice is consciously
and unconsciously gained through the very act of living. It's much like a
child growing, and learning as she does so, even if the input is not as
positive as you or I might like.
Then there are the rope courses! Heightened awareness of self and others,
greater sensitivity to behavioral types, understanding fact-based business
practices, and on and on. That's one example among millions of consulting
with a relatively non-threatening information source. Consultants are
everywhere providing practice fields, no? It's one of the few ways to get
uninterrupted practice time.
I like the implications fo your question for the actual workplace where we
have to think on our feet, little time to "practice", lots of time to
apply what we believe are the right tools for a given job--not much
practice time there.
I have instructed people with whom I work and train that at the end of
team meetings during the initial weeks of work together team members take
the last five minutes of a team meeting for something unusual: process
playback.
Leaving data and mission behind, team members each make observations about
how interactions worked during the hour or so. This debried may possibly
be the closest thing to "practice" that we can support and sustain in
situ.
Best regards,
-- Barry Mallis bmallis@markem.comLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>